


a practical guide to surviving being burned alive

by abcooper



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 22:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17150492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: for the prompt: Yaz and the doctor hang out at Yaz‘s house. Her sister teases her about finally having one friend seeing that she didn‘t have any before. Yaz is embarrassed and upset. The doctor comforts her.





	a practical guide to surviving being burned alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [applehead_63](https://archiveofourown.org/users/applehead_63/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, darling!! I hope this is something like what you wanted.

Yaz knocks on the door to her parents’ flat, and the oddness of it only hits her a moment after her knuckles hit the wood. She’s not sure when she started knocking; she’s not sure when it became her parents’ flat, and not hers.

It’s especially odd because for her, it’s been well over a year since she lived here, but to her parents, it’s been… how long has it been?

“What’s the date?” she asks the Doctor, who is lingering slightly behind her, hands shoved in her coat pockets. Every curve and jutting angle screams ‘ _feeling awkward’_ and now that Yaz has known her a year longer, she knows that the Doctor’s manic good cheer on her last visit had masked a deep discomfort with anything as domestic or human as a visit home for tea. She also knows that in the aftermath of their most recent adventure, the Doctor is being uncharacteristically well-behaved as a way of being kind. She’s _worried_ about Yaz.

Just now, she sniffs the air, which is currently cold and a little wet. “April! Mid-April, about two in the afternoon, it rained yesterday, and one of your neighbors recently switched from cable to satellite…”

If it’s mid-April, it’s only been six months, from her parent’s perspectives. Well, six months since she left with the doctor - five months since Yaz moved out, because the first month had been a wild ride of spiders and lying about bread and pretending she was still coming home every other night. It’s been a year longer for Yaz than it’s been for them.

There are footsteps from inside, and a moment later the door swings open and Najia beams at them. “Yaz! Come in, darling, and here’s the Doctor with you. I wasn’t expecting you, should we all have a cup of tea?”

The Doctor beams at her, all manners and enthusiasm, and says, “I’d love some tea, thanks Najia,” and they’re ushered into the living room and onto the couch.

“Hakim’s not going to be home for a couple of hours, but Sonya should be back any minute, she’ll be glad to see you,” Najia calls back from kitchen, and even though she’d been gestured to sit, twenty years of instinct and training have Yaz jumping back up to help her mother in the kitchen.

“Let me get the kettle, Mum. We’d like to stick around long enough to see Dad, if you don’t mind. Actually, we’re hoping to spend the night. The Doctor’s flat is, um… under repair.”

That's one way of describing it. Another way would be to say that they had almost been burned alive, _again,_ and this time the electro-temporal energy had made a serious go at burning the TARDIS down with them. She’d landed them with a painful thud in Sheffield and practically kicked them out her door. The Doctor swore she’d be better by morning.

“Just needs a night to herself for repairs, poor dear. I think she’s embarrassed, actually - all those times I’ve bragged about how nothing can get through her shields,” she’d explained brightly, which was how they’d all ended up heading home for an overnight visit, and of _course_ the Doctor had tagged along with Yaz. That was the unspoken agreement, and it would have been the case even if the Doctor _hadn’t_ been refusing to let Yaz out of her sight since - well, it didn’t matter. Yaz had survived. She was _fine._

“Of course you can spend the night!” Najia says immediately. “It’s always your home too, you know that. Is the Doctor’s flat badly damaged?”

“No, it’ll be fine, just needs some large burly men to hammer at it for a few hours,” Yaz assures her innocently, and Najia laughs.

“Well alright, then - you’ve really got to invite me over one day, you know. You’ve been living there for almost six months and I still haven’t seen it. I barely even see you!”

Yaz winces. “I know, Mum, I’m sorry. It’s just that the Doctor and I travel so much, we’re barely in Sheffield, really.”

The kettle interrupts with a loud whistle, much to Yaz’s relief, and she makes a loud bustling production of pouring it over bags into mugs and helping Najia carry them into the living room. The Doctor is no longer sitting on the couch, obviously - if she’d stayed still for six whole minutes, Yaz would have had to figure out how to get the TARDIS to scan her brain, because obviously it would be some kind of possession situation.

Instead she’s up investigating a photo album off the bookshelf, and when she turns around her face is a picture of delight. “These are _brilliant._ Look, it’s baby Yaz! Baby Yaz!” she announces gleefully, and flops into the middle seat of the couch between them, showing off her find.

“Oh, yes, she’s about six months old there,” Najia says, smiling. “You can tell because there I am pregnant and showing again in the background - Yaz and Sonya are only about 11 months apart, you know.”

“Worst birthday present ever,” Yaz says obligingly, because it’s an old joke between them, and she can’t let an opportunity to say it go by unremarked. Najia rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and the Doctor looks confused.

Abruptly, for no reason at all, Yaz remembers - flames rising up around her, devouring the oxygen so completely that she starts to drown on land, the agony of her throat and lungs blistering from the heat of the air she is desperately trying to breathe. She’s so certain that she is about to die, and she realizes in a moment of plaintive, childish terror that she simply doesn’t _want_ to, even to escape the pain -

“Yaz? Yaz, come back to me darling, right here, eh? We’re in your flat, you’re safe and whole…” with a start, Yaz realizes that the Doctor is crouched in front of her, holding her hands, and Najia is next to her looking panicked.

“What just happened?” she asks them both, and her mother gives a little sobbing noise and practically crushes her into a hug.

“You had a flashback,” the Doctor tells her gently, still kneeling in front of her.

“Oh… sorry,” Yaz says, a bit muffled by her mother’s chest, and the Doctor smiles lightly and rubs her knee a little, standing to take back her place on the couch.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” she says, and Yaz wonders for a moment if she’d expected this, if this was something she was _used_ to, after a couple thousand years of bringing humans along into danger.

  
“Flashback about _what,_ though?” Najia demands, rounding on the doctor furiously. “Just where are you and my daughter traveling to, that you’re bringing her back to me with PTSD?”

“Mum, stop,” Yaz says firmly, pulling back. “I’m sorry I frightened you, but it’s nothing like that. We…” she hesitates for a moment, and then decides that the situation calls for as much honesty as she can muster. “We did get into a rough spot yesterday traveling, but the Doctor pulled me out of it, just like she did for you with the spiders. Just like she always does. I promise I’ll tell you more about it, about what I’ve been doing, but…. not right now, OK? I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Yeah, but when will we talk about it?” Najia asks, and Yaz is horrified to spot tears pricking in her eyes. “You act like I’m stupid, Yasmin, but I’m not - I mean, you meet this strange woman and just _disappear_ , for months at a time, and you just quit your job and up and move out and say you’re living in her flat, and you won’t tell us one single detail about it, and now you’re showing up back here traumatized and you’re just going to _tell me later??_ And I don’t know anything about where you are, or what you’re doing. I don’t know if she’s giving you drugs, or if you’ve been _trafficked -_ ”   
  
“Mum, no! Ohmygod, no, nothing bad is happening, I swear. We’re just traveling, all sorts of places, it’s not even just us alone, Ryan and his granddad have been along with us…. I’ll show you tomorrow, alright?” Yaz shoots an anxious look in the Doctor’s direction and is relieved when she nods her permission. “The flat should be fixed tomorrow and I’ll show you exactly what my life looks like these days.”

“Really?” Najia says. “No details hidden away?”

“Everything,” Yaz says, and it’s a fast turnaround from panic to guilt, but actually, this particular guilt attack may be long overdue. “Mum, I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t have done things this way, just leaving and never telling you where or why. I’ve been unfair.”   
  
“Well - I don’t really believe all those things about drugs and trafficking. Not _really._ I mean - I thought the Doctor was alright, when I met her,” Najia says. “It’s just - it frightens me that you can’t tell me about it, sweetheart. I don’t see how anything this secret can be good.”

And while Najia had been at home worrying, Yaz had almost _died_ yesterday, and would anyone have even thought to tell her family? Well - Ryan and Graham would have. She wishes she could be sure that the Doctor would have, but she’s not. It’s not how the Doctor thinks. As far as Yaz can tell, the Doctor deals with her immortality by moving on from every tragedy at a steady sprint and never pausing to let them catch up with her.

She’s been brilliant through this, though, so maybe Yaz isn’t giving her enough credit. She leans into the Doctor's arm, hoping that the friendly contact will communicate ‘thanks’ and ‘sorry that my mom called you a sex trafficker’ all at once.

“I really will tell you everything tomorrow,” she tells Najia. “But can we leave it alone tonight? Sonya will be home, and I - I’m tired.” Her voice cracks at the end, and the Doctor’s arm comes up to encircle her shoulders, the Doctor’s thumb rubbing soothingly against her arm. Najia observes this for a moment, and then nods.

“Alright,” she says. “We’ll come back to it tomorrow. Do you want to look through the rest of that photo album? There are some good ones in there of Yaz and Sonya growing up.”

Yaz is almost positive that what Najia categorizes as “good,” she and Sonya would categorize as “mortifying,” but still, she’s glad to tune out for a moment, letting her head fall against the Doctor’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

She’d had a flashback. She prods cautiously at the idea, but there’s no return of the vivid panic, the sensation of burning. She doesn’t know what brought it on the first time. She’s been avoiding thinking about what happened, and she also hasn’t really had a moment. She’d woken up in the medbay, fully healed, to the sensation of the damaged TARDIS landing and practically throwing them out her door. They’d taken a moment to regroup together in a chip shop before deciding to part ways for the night, but there hadn’t ever been a calm opportunity to stop and internalize the fact that the crisis was over. Just - almost burning to death, and then a few hours later, sitting down for tea with her mum. Under the circumstances, she supposes it’s understandable that she’d still be a little - _frazzled._

She’ll be fine, though. The TARDIS will be repaired in the morning, and she’ll throw herself right back onto the horse. She’s trained for this. Well - not trained for _this_ , but she’s trained to handle dangerous situations, and she can handle the aftermath.

She opens her eyes back up when she hears the lock shift in the door, but she doesn’t bother raising her head as Sonya comes into the living room. A comfortable lethargy has stolen over her body, and the Doctor’s warmth is a soothing cocoon.

“Oh look, my deadbeat sister’s back! Hello,” Sonya calls out sarcastically as she hangs her keys on the hook and tosses her jacket onto a chair. “What’re we all doing, then?”

“I was just showing the Doctor some old pictures of you two,” Najia says, and Sonya comes around the couch to see, leaning idly on the back of it.

“Oh good, high school photos, nothing embarrassing about that,” she says, and Yaz feels a moment of sibling connection before Sonya ruins it completely by continuing. “Mind you, Yaz is alone in all those photos because she didn’t manage to have a single friend in high school - it’s a miracle she’s got one now.”  
  
Sonya has said similar things a thousand times, and at a thousand other moments, Yaz has fired back an equally cheap shot about Sonya’s job prospects, love life, or makeup. Right now though, in this particular moment, it’s too much on top of everything else.

“Fuck right off,” she mumbles, and turns her head a little so that her face is properly buried in the Doctor’s neck and her family can’t see the tears pricking in her eyes. She feels them, hot and wet, as they escape onto the Doctor’s skin, and feels the Doctor’s hand come up to stroke her hair.

“Right, whatever weirdo,” Sonya says. “Mum, I’m just going to change and then I’m going out for drinks with Soph and Hannah, I’ll be back late. I’ll stop off for milk if I remember, yeah?”

“You be careful, don’t drink too much,” Najia says sternly, and Yaz focuses on the way it feels as the Doctor’s fingers card through her hair and scratch her scalp. It’s blissful. She vaguely registers that Sonya leaves again, and that her mother and the Doctor are continuing to make small talk and drink tea, but she is content to stay where she is for as long as the Doctor continues to pet her. She feels a bit like a cat; if she knew how, she’d be purring, utterly boneless and soothed.

Eventually, guilt pricks at her and she rouses. The look Najia gives her is wry and knowing, and Yaz smiles sheepishly. “Sorry Mum, I think I’m exhausted.”  
  
“Why don’t you go take a nap for a few hours before your father gets home?” Najia suggests. “We left your bedroom exactly the way it was.”

“That sounds fantastic.” Yaz latches onto the idea gratefully.

“Do you want some company?” the Doctor asks, and behind her, Yaz sees Najia’s eyebrows practically reach her hairline. She briefly weighs the pros and cons of saying yes. She’ll _never_ convince her mum that they aren’t dating after this, but she actually _would_ like the Doctor’s company, while she’s feeling so oddly fragile. In an ideal world, where her most embarrassing crush-related fantasies could come to life, she’d like to continue having her hair petted by the Doctor while she falls asleep.

Also, if she says no, it means leaving the Doctor to her mother’s tender mercies for whole hours, and she’s not sure the Doctor would ever forgive her.

“Yeah, come have a nap with me,” she tells the Doctor, and then turns to her mum and adds, “we’re really jetlagged, sorry.”

“Uh huh,” Najia says skeptically, eyebrows still high. “Go share a nap then, but I trust there won’t be any shenanigans under my roof when you’ve got an apartment to yourselves every other night of your lives.”

“Naps only,” Yaz agrees hurriedly, and grabs the Doctor before she can start asking clarifying questions on that one.

She closes the door to her bedroom and exhales, relieved at this momentary reprieve from the unexpected emotionality of the afternoon.

“Glad for the chance to sleep, I’m proper tired, actually,” she tells the Doctor. “Is that part of the TARDIS healing me?”

“Yeah, that’s likely - she would’ve normally kept you unconscious awhile longer if she hadn’t been so desperate to repair herself,” the Doctor says, and puts the back of her hand to Yaz’s forehead like she’s checking for a temperature. She’s so precious, forehead knitted together with concern, and Yaz can’t help but smile at the focused expression on her face.

“What do you think, Doc, will it be fatal?” she jokes, and then remembers that it very nearly was, and abruptly isn’t amused by herself at all.

The Doctor doesn’t seem amused either. Instead she pulls Yaz against her in a brief embrace. “You’re going to be just fine, Yasmin Khan,” she promises her solemnly. “There is nothing wrong with you that can’t be fixed by a good nap and your dad’s cooking.”

Yaz laughs, but the words hit her from an unexpected angle, and then abruptly she’s got tears pricking at her eyes again and it’s embarrassing because she’s _never_ like this. She’s tough.

She turns toward her bureau to give herself a moment. “Do you want some pajamas to nap in? Suspenders can’t be comfortable sleepwear.”

“I’m alright, probably won’t actually sleep,” the Doctor assures her, and Yaz shrugs her acceptance of that answer. She considers her own options for a moment and decides to leave her clothes on, unhooking her bra and sliding it off her arms and out from under her shirt.

“I really am going to nap for a bit, do you want a book or something?” she asks. The Doctor levels her with a long, patient look, and then shakes her head.

“I’d rather just curl up with you, even if I don’t manage to sleep. Is that alright?” she asks, and Yaz smiles at her.

“That’s perfect.”

She makes the Doctor take her suspenders off anyways, because they aren’t comfortable to press up against, and then they arrange themselves together in Yaz’s twin bed. It’s not the first time they’ve done this; the Doctor always seems to know when Yaz needs some extra reassurance in the form of an extended hug. Yaz presses up against the Doctor’s shoulder in a prone mirror of her position on the couch, and enjoys the feeling of the Doctor’s arm wrapped around her.

There’s a moment of silence in which Yaz’s eyes flutter shut. “Yaz,” the Doctor asks quietly, “why did Sonya say that earlier? About you not having friends in high school? Is that related to what you told Willa, about Izzy Flint making you miserable for a year?”  
  
“I can’t believe you remember that,” Yaz murmurs.

“I remember everything about you,” the Doctor says and Yaz sighs, touched and chagrined in equal measure. This isn’t her favorite topic, but she’s wrapped up in the Doctor’s arms, and the Doctor is being transparent about how much Yaz means to her, and there’s enough warmth and safety in all of that that Yaz can be brave.

“I had a rough time as a teenager,” she says. “I mean - you know some of it, kids giving me a hard time for being Muslim, for being brown. And then when I was in the ninth grade, Izzy Flint told everyone that I was a lesbian, and that was a whole trifecta of social rejection.”

The Doctor’s arms tighten around her. “They were unkind about it?”

“They were awful,” Yaz says bluntly. “Four girls petitioned the gym teacher to have me banned from the locker room. I got beat up twice that year. And I couldn’t tell my parents why it was happening, because I wasn’t out at home yet. I was miserable.”

“When did it start to get better?” the Doctor asks. Her hand is resting on Yaz’s stomach, and her fingers start to move in a circular motion, comforting, with just enough pressure to avoid tickling.

Yaz is grateful to jump to that part of the story. She leaves out a million painful details - about how Izzy knew about her in the first place, about Sonya’s reaction when she heard the rumors, about specific people who were disgusted or shocked or dismissive in cutting ways. She skips entirely over the phase where she’d tried desperately to fit in, where she’d tried eating hamburgers and saying yes to boys when she wanted to say no, and wearing makeup and clothing that she didn’t like and that made her stomach coil tight whenever she looked into the mirror.

She skips past all that, and says, “I learned to take all that anger, and channel it into doing what’s right. I took my officer training, and I stopped being helpless, and I started standing up not just for myself, but for anyone like me, for anyone who was being treated badly. I made a job out of it, and I kept looking for ways to do more, and then one day, I was looking and I met you. And it’s all been uphill from there, hasn’t it?”

It really, really has.

“Brilliant, beautiful Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor murmurs behind her. “The girl who helps. The universe is so incredibly lucky to have you. I’m so lucky.”

It’s only the TARDIS healing that could make her eyes droop shut when the Doctor is saying things like that, and if she were less exhausted, Yaz might push on it - might see if the Doctor’s words are meant to lead somewhere. But she can’t stay awake another moment, and if things are truly developing between them the way Yaz hopes, then there will be other opportunities on the horizon.

What she says instead is, “if I had to wait all this time to have friends, I’m glad the ones I’ve found now are so worth the wait.”

She feels the Doctor’s hand move back to her hair, steady soothing strokes, and Yaz smiles as she falls asleep.


End file.
